SIR: ECI seeks public opinion on five questions

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday sought public opinion on various concerns regarding the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, which ignited a full-scale spat between the ruling and Opposition parties in Bihar, sources said.

The poll panel has prepared a set of five questions to elicit people’s views, in an apparent bid to galvanise support for the ‘voter purging’ campaign.

It is yet to issue any official communication, but the questions on which it wants the public to give their opinion are as follows:

• Should voter rolls be revised and scrutinised extensively?
• Shouldn’t the names of the dead be removed from the electoral rolls?
• Should the names of electors be removed from the list if they are registered elsewhere?
• Shouldn’t those voters be excluded from the list, who have settled in other states?
• Shouldn’t the foreigners and ‘outside elements’ be denied voting rights?

According to ECI sources, the poll panel plans to conduct this “survey” among the electorate unofficially in the poll-bound state and silently bolster its case against the “targeted attack” by the Opposition parties.

Lately, the poll panel has come under direct attack with opposition parties accusing it of voter fraud and electoral malpractice, in “connivance” with the ruling BJP. The matter was also dragged to the Supreme Court, which directed the poll panel to ensure the inclusion of all voters in the list.

Under SIR, the voter identification drive was carried out by thousands of Booth Level Officers (BLOs) in coordination with Booth Level Agents (BLAs) deputed by political parties.

The campaign, conducted from June 25 – July 25, faced considerable resistance on the ground, but all hell broke loose after the poll panel published draft electoral rolls on August 1.

Congress-led Opposition tore into EC, accusing it of manipulating electoral rolls with a malicious intention to curtail their voters’ base, a charge outrightly denied by the poll panel.

The ‘vote chori’ charge by the Opposition also succeeded to an extent in creating traction on the ground, with “dead voters being included in the list and genuine ones being denied voting rights” becoming a talking point in the poll-bound state.

The accusations and rebuttals also saw an unprecedented escalation as the ECI held a press conference, not just to refute the Opposition’s charges but also to give a dressing down to the latter for “baseless and unfounded claims”.

As the row over SIR sees no sign of abatement in “political hostility” on Bihar’s electoral turf, this could be ECI’s fresh attempt to negate and neutralise “negative propaganda” on the voter verification drive.

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